Nanotechnology relies on our ability to manipulate matter and fabricate device structure at the nanometer scale. Present solid-state fabrication methods reproducibly achieving dimensional control at the nanometer scale are often complex and involve the use of expensive infrastructure, operated by highly qualified personnel. For instance, the problem of fabricating a molecular-scale hole, or nanopore, in a thin insulating solid-state membrane requires the use of focused high-energy particles, either produced by a dedicated ion beam machine (ion-beam sculpting) or a transmission electron microscope (TEM drilling). Although these advances in nanofabrication have placed the fabrication of nanoscale devices with sub-nm control within reach of the academic laboratories, they are poorly suited to mass-producing holes in a membrane to create nanopores. This represents a major barrier to the commercialization of any solid-state nanopore-based technologies for health science applications, including rapid DNA sequencing.
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